That was new pleasure—the ideal, Dim, vanities of dreams by nightAnd dimmer nothings which were real(Shadows-and a more shadowy light!) Parted upon their misty wings, And so, confusedly, became Thine image and—a name—a name! Two separate-yet most intimate things. I was ambitious-have you known The passion, father? You have not: A cottager, I mark'd a throne Of half the world as all my own, And murmur'd at such lowly lot But, just like any other dream, Upon the vapor of the dew My own had past, did not the beam Of beauty which did while it thro' The minute-the hour-the day-oppress My mind with double loveliness. We walk'd together on the crown Of a high mountain which looked down Afar from its proud natural towers Of rock and forest, on the hills The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers And shouting with a thousand rills. I spoke to her of power and pride, A mingled feeling with my ownThe flush on her bright cheek, to me Seem'd to become a queenly throne Too well that I should let it be Light in the wilderness alone. I wrapp'd myself in grandeur then, Had thrown her mantle over me But that, among the rabble-men, Lion Ambition is chain'd down And crouches to a keeper's hand Not so in deserts where the grand-- With their own breath to fan his fire. Look 'round thee now on Samarcand !Is she not queen of Earth? her pride Above all cities? in her hand Their destinies? in all beside Of glory which the world hath known A diadem'd outlaw! O, human love! thou spirit given, Upon the Siroc-withered plain, And, failing in thy power to bless, And beauty of so wild a birth Farewell for I have won the Earth. When Hope, that eagle that tower'd, could see No cliff beyond him in the sky, His pinions were bent droopingly And homeward turn'd his softened eye. 'Twas sunset: when the sun will part There comes a sullenness of heart To him who still would look upon The glory of the summer sun. That soul will hate the ev'ning mist So often lovely, and will list To the sound of the coming darkness (known To those whose spirits hearken) as one Who, in a dream of night, would fly, But cannot, from a danger nigh. What tho' the moon-the white moon In that time of dreariness, will seem (So like you gather in your breath) A portrait taken after death. And boyhood is a summer sun Whose waning is the dreariest one- And, tho' my tread was soft and low, |